Three hundred Kurds detained and further 400 evacuated following clashes in Aleppo
Syrian government forces have detained 300 Kurds and evacuated more than 400 Kurdish fighters after clashes in Aleppo, the interior ministry has said, as US and allied forces carried out separate “large-scale” strikes against Islamic State targets.
An interior ministry official told Agence France-Presse that about 360 Kurdish fighters and 60 wounded had been bussed to the Kurds’ de facto autonomous zone in the north-east from the Sheikh Maqsoud district, the last area of Aleppo to fall to the army.
A further 300 Kurds, including members of the Kurdish internal security forces, were detained, the official said on Sunday. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it had agreed under a ceasefire to withdraw from Aleppo after days of fighting.
Kurdish forces had controlled several pockets of Syria’s second city and operate a de facto autonomous administration across large swathes of the north and north-east, much of it captured during the country’s bloody 14-year civil war.
